Crimean War

I

Introduction

Crimean War (1853-1856), military conflict between Russia and a coalition of Great Britain, France, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire; it was a major turning point in the political history of post-Napoleonic Europe.

II

The Eastern Question

The roots of the conflict lay in the Eastern Question posed by the decline of the Ottoman Empire, a development fraught with explosive implications for the European balance of power. From the late 18th century, Russia had become increasingly eager to take advantage of this situation to increase its influence in the Balkans and to wrest from the Turks control of the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Following their victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829) and especially after the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (1833), the Russians moved towards the establishment of a unilateral protectorate over the Ottoman Empire.

Britain and France viewed the possibility of Russian control of the straits as a threat to their own interests in the Middle East, and many in those countries despised Russia as the despotic enemy of liberalism (see British Foreign Policy Since 1800). Austria too, despite a long tradition of diplomatic cooperation with Russia, was uneasy about growing Russian influence in the Balkans. In 1841, the European powers and the Ottoman Empire managed to replace the Unkiar-Skelessi agreement with a general European protectorate.

III

The War Crisis

By the early 1850s, however, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia believed he saw another opportunity to further Russian influence by intervention in Turkish affairs. He felt confident of support from Austria in return for the aid Russia had given the Habsburg dynasty during the revolutions of 1848 to 1850. He also believed, mistakenly, that the British government of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th earl of Aberdeen, would collaborate in a partition of the Balkan territories controlled by the Turks.

The immediate cause for Russian intervention was a dispute between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians over control of the holy places in Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. In December 1852 the Ottoman sultan, responding to French pressure, decided in favour of the Roman Catholics. Nicholas, the protector of Orthodoxy, quickly dispatched a mission to Constantinople (now İstanbul, Turkey), aiming at a new settlement in favour of the Orthodox Christians and a treaty guaranteeing their rights within the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, in discussions with the British ambassador to Russia, Nicholas raised the possibility of a partition of the Balkans and a “temporary” Russian occupation of Constantinople and the straits.

The British ambassador to Constantinople, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, helped arrange an amicable settlement over the Palestinian holy places, but persuaded the Turks to reject the other Russian demands as presenting a threat to their sovereignty. Russia responded on July 1, 1853, by occupying the Turkish principalities of Moldavia and Walachia (now Romania). The European powers attempted to arrange a compromise, but this proved futile. On October 4, confident of British and French support, the Ottoman Empire declared war against Russia.

IV

The War

On November 30, 1853, the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at the Black Sea port of Sinope, leading to public outcry in Britain and France. In March 1854, after Russia ignored their demand to evacuate Moldavia and Walachia, Britain and France declared war believing that their naval supremacy would bring a quick victory. They were later joined by the Italian kingdom of Sardinia which hoped to gain favour with Great Britain and France, and their help in expelling Austria from the smaller Italian kingdoms. On June 3, Austria, to Russia’s dismay, threatened to declare war unless Russia evacuated Moldavia and Walachia. Russia complied on August 5, and Austrian troops occupied the principalities.

The allies then decided on a campaign against Sevastopol in the Crimea, headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and their forces landed in the Crimea in September 1854. Despite bloody victories over the Russians on the River Alma and at the Battles of Balaklava, and Inkerman, the war dragged on, as the Russians refused to accept the allies’ peace terms. Finally, on September 9, 1855, Sevastopol fell, but only after Austria threatened to enter the war did Russia agree to make peace.

The Treaty of Paris, signed on March 30, 1856, was a major setback for Russia’s Middle Eastern policy. Russia was forced to return southern Bessarabia and the mouth of the Danube to the Ottoman Empire; Moldavia, Walachia, and Serbia were placed under an international rather than a Russian guarantee; the sultan limited himself to vague promises to respect the rights of all his Christian subjects; and the Russians were forbidden to maintain a navy on the Black Sea.

In military terms, the war was a blundering, needlessly costly affair. The commanders on both sides proved remarkably inept, squandering lives in senseless engagements such as the famed “Charge of the Light Brigade”, in which a British unit suffered severe losses during the Battle of Balaklava. Supplies of food, clothing, and munitions to both armies were hampered by inefficiency and corruption, and medical services were appalling. The British nurse Florence Nightingale won fame by her efforts to improve the care of the sick and wounded, but more men died of disease than in battle. Public opinion in Great Britain had also become increasingly critical of the war after reading eyewitness accounts in The Times newspaper, sent back by the Irish reporter W. H. Russell, the first journalist to write as a war correspondent using the telegraph.

Nevertheless, the war was an event of major significance in European history. It marked the collapse of the arrangement whereby the victors of the Napoleonic Wars, namely Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, had cooperated to maintain peace in Europe for four decades. The myth of Russian might was laid to rest, and the breakup of the old coalition permitted Germany and Italy to free themselves from Austrian influence and emerge as independent nations in the decade that followed. Finally, the shock of the Crimean defeat was the catalyst for a programme of sweeping internal reform in Russia under Nicholas’s successor, Alexander II.