Crimean War

Crimean War
(October 1853 – February 1856)
It was a conflict in which Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. While neutral, the Austrian Empire also played a role in defeating the Russians

The immediate issue involved the rights of Christians in the Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Orthodox. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. Russia lost and the Ottomans gained a twenty-year respite from Russian pressure. The Christians were granted a degree of official equality and the Orthodox gained control of the Christian churches in dispute.:415 Russia survived, gained a new appreciation for its religious diversity, and launched a reform program with far-reaching consequences.

Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in October 1853 over Russia's rights to protect Orthodox Christians. Russia gained the upper hand after destroying the Ottoman fleet at the Black Sea port of Sinope; to stop Russia's conquest, France and Britain entered in March 1854. Most of the fighting took place for control of the Black Sea, with land battles on the Crimean peninsula in southern Russia. The Russians held their great fortress at Sevastopol for over a year. After it fell, a peace was arranged at Paris in March 1856. The religion issue had already been resolved. The main results were that the Black Sea was neutralised—Russia would not have any warships there—and the two vassals Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent under nominal Ottoman rule.

There were smaller campaigns in eastern Anatolia, Caucasus, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea. In Russia, this war is also known as the "Eastern War" (Russian: Восточная война, Vostochnaya Voina)

The war transformed the region. Because of battles, population exchanges, and nationalist movements incited by the war, the present-day states of Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and regions such as Crimea and the Caucasus all changed in small or large ways due to this conflict

The Crimean War is notorious for logistical, medical and tactical failure on both sides. The naval side saw both a successful Allied campaign which eliminated most of the ships of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, and a successful blockade by the Royal Navy in the Baltic. It was one of the first "modern" wars because it saw the first use of major technologies, such as railways and telegraphs.(Preface) It is also famous for the work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, who pioneered contrasting modern medical practices while treating the wounded. The war was one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and photographs

Russian expansionism[edit]Russia, as a member of the Holy Alliance, had operated as the "police of Europe", maintaining the balance of power that had been established in the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. Russia had assisted Austria's efforts in suppressing the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and expected gratitude. It wanted a free hand in settling its problems with the Ottoman Empire – the "sick man of Europe". Britain could not tolerate Russian dominance of Ottoman affairs as that would challenge the British role in the eastern Mediterranean.[14]

For over 200 years, Russia had been expanding in a southerly direction toward the warm water ports of the Black Sea. Warm water ports that did not freeze over in the winter were essential for the development of Russian year-round trade and development of a strong navy.[10]:11 This brought the emerging Russian state into conflict with the Ukrainian Cossacks and then with the Crimean Tatars.[15] When Russia conquered these groups and gained possession of Ukraine, the Ottoman Empire lost its buffer zone against Russian expansion, and Russia and the Ottoman Empire fell into direct conflict. The conflict with the Ottoman Empire also presented a religious issue of importance, as Russia saw itself as the protector of Orthodox Christians, many of whom lived under Ottoman control.[10](ch 1)

The immediate causes of the war[edit]The immediate chain of events leading to France and Britain declaring war on Russia on 27 and 28 March 1854 came from the ambition of the French emperor Napoleon III to restore the grandeur of France. He wanted Catholic support that would come his way if he attacked Eastern Orthodoxy, as sponsored by Russia.[10]:103 The Marquis Charles de La Valette was a zealous Catholic and a leading member of the "clerical party" which demanded French protection of the Roman Catholic rights to the holy places in Palestine. Napoleon appointed La Valette in May 1851 as his ambassador to the Porte (the Ottoman Empire).[10]:7–9 The appointment was made with the intent to force the Ottomans to recognise France as the "sovereign authority" over the Christian population.[13]:19 Russia disputed this attempted change in authority. Pointing to two more treaties, one in 1757 and the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, the Ottomans reversed their earlier decision, renouncing the French treaty and insisting that Russia was the protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

Napoleon III responded with a show of force, sending the ship of the line Charlemagne to the Black Sea. This action was a violation of the London Straits Convention.[13]:19 However, the Ottomans knew that the Charlemagne sailed at a speed of 8½ knots and could defeat the technologically inferior Russian and Ottoman navies combined.[10]:104 Thus, France's show of force presented a real threat, and when combined with aggressive diplomacy and money, induced Sultan Abdülmecid I to accept a new treaty, confirming France and the Roman Catholic Church as the supreme Christian authority with control over the Roman Catholic holy places and possession of the keys to the Church of the Nativity, previously held by the Greek Orthodox Church.[13]:20

Tsar Nicholas I then deployed his 4th and 5th army corps along the River Danube in Wallachia, as a direct threat to the Ottoman lands south of the river, and had Count Karl Nesselrode, his foreign minister, undertake talks with the Ottomans. Nesselrode confided to Sir George Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador in Saint Petersburg:

[The dispute over the holy places] had assumed a new character—that the acts of injustice towards the Greek church which it had been desired to prevent had been perpetrated and consequently that now the object must be to find a remedy for these wrongs. The success of French negotiations at Constantinople was to be ascribed solely to intrigue and violence—violence which had been supposed to be the ultima ratio of kings, being, it had been seen, the means which the present ruler of France was in the habit of employing in the first instance.[13]:21

As conflict emerged over the issue of the holy places, Nicholas I and Nesselrode began a diplomatic offensive, which they hoped would prevent either Britain's or France's interfering in any conflict between Russia and the Ottomans, as well as to prevent their allying.


Cornet assistant surgeon Henry Wilkin, 11th Hussars. He survived the Charge of the Light Brigade. Photo: Roger Fenton.Nicholas began courting Britain by means of conversations with the British ambassador, George Hamilton Seymour, in January and February 1853.[10]:105 Nicholas insisted that he no longer wished to expand Imperial Russia[10]:105 but that he had an obligation to the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.[10]:105 The Tsar next dispatched a diplomat, Prince Menshikov, on a special mission to the Ottoman Sublime Porte in February 1853.[10]:107 By previous treaties, the sultan was committed "to protect the (Eastern Orthodox) Christian religion and its churches". Menshikov attempted to negotiate a new sened, a formal convention with the power of an international treaty, under which the Ottomans would allow to Russia the same rights of intervention in the affairs of the Orthodox religion as recently allowed France with respect to Catholic churches and churchmen.[16] Such a treaty would allow Russia to control the Orthodox Church's hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire. Menshikov arrived at Istanbul on 16 February 1853, on the steam-powered warship Gromovnik (Thunderer).[17]:4–5 The ship (Thunderer) that Menshikov sailed to Constantinople aboard was aptly named.[10]:108 Once in Constantinople, Menshikov proceeded to break protocol at the Porte. At his first meeting with the sultan, he insulted the Turks by appearing in civilian clothes rather than customary and traditional military uniform for his official welcome to the Porte.[10]:109 He then proceeded to condemn the Ottomans' concessions to the French. Menshikov also began demanding the replacement of highly placed Ottoman civil servants—particularly Fuad Efendi the Ottoman foreign minister

Since the departure in January 1853 of Stratford Canning, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the British embassy at Constantinople had been run by Hugh Rose, chargé d'affaires for the British.[10]:110 Using his abundant resources within the Ottoman Empire, Rose gathered intelligence on Russian troop movements along the Danube frontier, and became concerned about the extent of Menshikov's mission to the Porte. On 8 March 1853, Rose, using his authority as the British representative to the Ottomans, ordered Vice-Admiral Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas, stationed on the island of Malta, to bring a British squadron of warships to Urla, İzmir, on the Ionian coast of Turkey.[17]:5 However, Sir James Dundas refused to leave Malta[17]:5 and resented the diplomat (Rose) for believing he could interfere in the Admiralty's business. Within a week, Rose's actions were cancelled.[18] The French fleet sailed from Toulon on 22 March 1853, and headed for the Bosporus.[10]:112 Their intent was to head off any naval attack on Constantinople on the west side of the narrows at Bosporus. Thus, only the French sent a naval task force to support the Ottomans

First hostilities
Battle of Sinope, by Ivan AivazovskyIn February 1853, the British government of Lord Aberdeen, the prime minister, re-appointed Stratford Canning as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.[10]:110 Having resigned the ambassadorship in January, he had been replaced by Baron Strathnairn. Lord Stratford then turned around and sailed back to Constantinople, arriving there on 5 April 1853. There he convinced the Sultan to reject the Russian treaty proposal, as compromising the independence of the Turks. The Leader of the Opposition in the British House of Commons, Benjamin Disraeli, blamed Aberdeen and Stratford's actions for making war inevitable, thus starting the process which would eventually force the Aberdeen government to resign in January 1855, over the war.

Shortly after he learned of the failure of Menshikov's diplomacy toward the end of June 1853, the Tsar sent armies under the commands of Field Marshall Ivan Paskevich and General Mikhail Gorchakov across the Pruth River into the Ottoman-controlled Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Fewer than half of the 80,000 Russian soldiers who crossed the Pruth in 1853 survived. By far, most of the deaths would result from sickness rather than combat,[]:118–119 for the Russian army still suffered from medical service that ranged from bad to none.

Russia had previously obtained from the Ottoman Empire recognition of the Tsar's role as special guardian of the Orthodox Christians in Moldavia and Wallachia. Now Russia used the Sultan's failure to resolve the issue of the protection of the Christian sites in the Holy Land as a pretext for Russian occupation of these Danubian provinces. Nicholas believed that the European powers, especially Austria, would not object strongly to the annexation of a few neighbouring Ottoman provinces, especially considering that Russia had assisted Austria's efforts in suppressing the Hungarian Revolution in 1849.


Russo-French skirmish during Crimean WarIn July 1853, the Tsar sent his troops into the Danubian Principalities. Britain, hoping to maintain the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the expansion of Russian power in Asia, sent a fleet to the Dardanelles, where it joined another fleet sent by France.[]

The Sultan formally declared war on Russia on 23 October 1853 and proceeded to the attack, his armies moving on the Russian army near the Danube later that month. Russia and the Ottoman empire massed forces on two main fronts, the Caucasus and the Danube. Ottoman leader Omar Pasha managed to achieve some victories on the Danubian front.[20] In the Caucasus, the Ottomans were able to stand ground with the help of Chechen Muslims led by Imam Shamil.[21] Nicholas responded by dispatching warships, which in the Battle of Sinop on 30 November 1853 destroyed a patrol squadron of Ottoman frigates and corvettes while they were anchored in port in northern Anatolia

The European powers continued to pursue diplomatic avenues. The representatives of the four neutral Great Powers—Britain, France, Austria and Prussia—met in Vienna, where they drafted a note which they hoped would be acceptable to both the Russians and the Ottomans. The peace terms arrived at by the four powers at the Vienna Conference were delivered to the Russians by the Austrian Foreign Minister Count Karl Von Buol on 5 December 1853. The note met with the approval of Nicholas I; however, Abdülmecid I rejected the proposal, feeling that the document's poor phrasing left it open to many different interpretations. Britain, France, and Austria united in proposing amendments to mollify the Sultan, but the court of St Petersburg ignored their suggestions.[10]:143 Britain and France then set aside the idea of continuing negotiations, but Austria and Prussia did not believe that the rejection of the proposed amendments justified the abandonment of the diplomatic process. The destruction of the Ottoman ships provided Britain and France with the casus belli ("case for war") for declaring war against Russia on the side of the Ottoman Empire. On 28 March 1854, after Russia ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to withdraw from the Danubian Principalities, Britain and France formally declared war

Peace attempts[edit]Nicholas felt that because of Russian assistance in suppressing the Hungarian revolution of 1848, Austria would side with him, or at the very least remain neutral. Austria, however, felt threatened by the Russian troops. When Britain and France demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from the principalities, Austria supported them and, though it did not immediately declare war on Russia, it refused to guarantee its neutrality

Russia then withdrew its troops from the Danubian principalities, which were then occupied by Austria for the duration of the war. This removed the original grounds for war, but Britain and France continued with hostilities. Determined to address the Eastern Question by putting an end to the Russian threat to the Ottoman Empire, the allies proposed several conditions for a peaceful resolution, including:

Russia was to give up its protectorate over the Danubian Principalities;
It was to abandon any claim granting it the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs on behalf of Orthodox Christians;
The Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised;
All nations were to be granted access to the River Danube.
When the Tsar refused to comply with these Four Points, the Crimean War commenced.