Crimean War
The Crimean War lasted from
28 March 1853 until
1 April 1856 and was fought between
Imperial Russia on one side and an alliance of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Second French Empire, the
Kingdom of Sardinia, and (to some extent) the
Ottoman Empire on the other.
The majority of the conflict took place on the
Crimean peninsula in the
Black Sea.
Beginning of the war
Palmerston and other British leaders expressed fears of Russian encroachment upon
India and
Afghanistan, and advocated finding an opportunity to weaken this threat. In the 1850s, a pretext was found in the cause of protecting Catholic holy places in
Palestine. Under treaties negotiated during the eighteenth century,
France was the guardian of
Roman Catholics in the
Ottoman Empire, while
Russia was the protector of
Orthodox Christians. For several years, however, Catholic and Orthodox monks had disputed possession of the
Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem and the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem. During the early
1850s, the two sides made demands which
Abd-ul-Mejid I the sitting
sultan, could not possibly satisfy simultaneously. In
1853, Mejid I adjudicated in favour of the French, despite the vehement protestations of the local Orthodox monks.
The
Tsar of
Russia,
Nicholas I dispatched a diplomat,
Prince Menshikov, on a special mission to the
Porte. By previous treaties, the sultan was committed "to protect the Christian religion and its Churches," but Menshikov attempted to negotiate a new treaty, under which Russia would be allowed to interfere whenever it deemed the Sultan's protection inadequate. At the same time, however, the British government of Prime Minister
Aberdeen sent
Lord Stratford, who learned of Menshikov's demands upon arriving in Istanbul. Through skillful diplomacy, Lord Stratford convinced the Sultan to reject the treaty, which compromised the independence of the Turks.
Benjamin Disraeli blamed Aberdeen and Stratford's actions for making war inevitable, thus starting the process by which Aberdeen would be forced to resign for his role in starting the war. Shortly after he learned of the failure of Menshikov's diplomacy, the Tsar marched his armies into
Moldavia and
Wallachia (Ottoman principalities in which Russia was acknowledged as a special guardian of the Orthodox Church), using the Sultan's failure to resolve the issue of the Holy Places as a pretext. Nicholas believed that the European powers would not object strongly to the annexation of a few neighbouring Ottoman provinces, especially given Russian involvement in suppressing the
Revolutions of 1848.
When the Tsar sent his troops into Moldavia and Wallachia (the "Danubian Principalities"), Great Britain, seeking to maintain the security of the Ottoman Empire, sent a fleet to the
Dardanelles, where it was joined by another fleet sent by France. At the same time, however, the European powers hoped for a diplomatic compromise. The representatives of the four neutral Great Powers—Great Britain, France,
Austria and
Prussia—met in
Vienna, where they drafted a note which they hoped would be acceptable to Russia and Turkey. The note met with the approval of Nicholas I; it was, however, rejected by Abd-ul-Mejid I, who felt that the document's poor phrasing left it open to many different interpretations. Great Britain, France and Austria were united in proposing amendments to mollify the Sultan, but their suggestions were ignored in the Court of
Saint Petersburg. Great Britain and France 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 Sultan proceeded to war, his armies attacking the Russian army near the Danube. Nicholas responded by dispatching warships, which destroyed the entire Ottoman fleet at the
battle of Sinop on
30 November 1853, thereby making it possible for Russia to land and supply its forces on the Turkish shores fairly easily. The destruction of the Turkish fleet and the threat of Russian expansion alarmed both Great Britain and France, who stepped forth in defence of the Ottoman Empire. In
1853, after Russia ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to withdraw from the Danubian principalities, Great Britain and France declared war.
Peace attempts
Nicholas presumed that in return for the support rendered during the Revolutions of 1848, Austria would side with him, or at the very least remain neutral. Austria, however, felt threatened by the Russian troops in the nearby Danubian Principalities. When Great 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. When, in the summer of 1854, Austria made another demand for the withdrawal of troops, Russia feared that Austria would enter the war.
Though the original grounds for war were lost when Russia withdrew its troops from the Danubian Principalities, Great Britain and France failed to cease 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 the cessation of hostilities, including:# a demand that 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 the behalf of the Orthodox Christians;# the Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised;# all nations were to be granted access to the Danube River.
When the Tsar refused to comply with the Four Points, the Crimean War commenced.
--
The siege of Sevastopol
 |
French zouaves and Russian soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat at Malakhov Kurgan. |
The following month, though the immediate cause of war was withdrawn, allied troops landed in the Crimea and besieged the city of
Sevastopol, home of the
Tsar's
Black Sea fleet and the associated threat of potential Russian penetration into the
Mediterranean.
The Russians had to
scuttle their ships and used the naval cannons as additional artillery, and the ships' crews as marines. During the battle the Russians lost four 110- or 120-gun 3-decker
ships of the line, twelve 84-gun 2-deckers and four 60-gun frigates in the Black Sea, plus a large number of smaller vessels.
Admiral Nakhimov was mortally wounded in the head by a
sniper shot, and died on
30 June 1855. The city was captured in September
1855.
In the same year, the Russians
besieged and occupied the Turkish fortress of
Kars.
Azov Campaign and the siege of Taganrog
In spring 1855, the allied British-French commanders decided to send an expedition corps into the
Azov Sea to undermine Russian communications and supplies to besieged
Sevastopol. On May 12, 1855 British-French war ships entered the
Kerch Strait and destroyed the coast battery of the
Kamishevaya Bay. On
May 21,
1855 the gunboats and armed steamers attacked the seaport of
Taganrog, the most important hub in terms of its proximity to
Rostov on Don and due to vast resources of food, especially bread, wheat, barley and rye that were amassed in the city after the breakout of Crimean War that put an end to its exportation.
|
Bombardment of downtown Taganrog from the British raft during the first siege attempt. |
The
Governor of Taganrog,
Yegor Tolstoy and lieutenant-general
Ivan Krasnov refused the ultimatum, responding that
Russians never surrender their cities. The British-French squadron began bombardment of
Taganrog during 6.5 hours and landed 300 troops near the
Old Stairway in the downtown Taganrog, who were thrown back by
Don Cossacks and volunteer corps. In July 1855, the allied squadron tried to go past Taganrog to
Rostov on Don, entering the
Don River through the
Mius River. On
July 12,
1855 the H.M.S.
Jasper grounded near Taganrog thanks to a fisherman, who repositioned the buoys into shallow waters. The
cossacks captured the gunboat with all of its guns and blew it up. The third siege attempt was made August 19-31, 1855, but the city was already fortified and the squadron could not approach too close for landing operations. The allied fleet left the
Gulf of Taganrog on September 2, 1855, with minor military operations along
Azov Sea coast continuing until late fall 1855.
Baltic Theatre
The
Baltic was a forgotten theatre of the war. The popularisation of events elsewhere has overshadowed the overarching significance of this theatre, which was close to the
Russian capital. From the beginning the Baltic campaign turned into a stalemate. The outnumbered
Russian Baltic Fleet confined its movements to the areas around fortifications. At the same time British and French commanders
Sir Charles Napier and Parseval-Deschènes, although they led the largest fleet assembled since the
Napoleonic wars, considered Russian coastal fortifications, especially the
Kronstadt fortress, too well defended to engage and limited their actions to blockade of Russian trade and small raids on less protected parts of the
Finnish coast.
|
Bombardment of Sveaborg during the Crimean War. |
Russia was dependent on imports for both the domestic economy and the supply of her military forces and the blockade seriously undermined the Russian economy. The raiding allied British and French fleets destroyed forts on the Finnish coast including
Bomarsund on the
Åland Islands and
Fort Slava. Other such attacks were not so successful, and the poorly planned attempts to take Gange,
Ekenäs,
Kokkola (Gamla-Karleby) and
Turku (Åbo) were repulsed.
The burning of
tar warehouses and ships in
Oulu (Uleåborg) and
Raahe (Brahestad) led to international criticism, and in Britain, a Mr Gibson demanded in the
House of Commons that the First Lord of the Admiralty explain
a system which carried on a great war by plundering and destroying the property of defenceless villagers. By autumn, the Allies' fleet left the Baltic for the
White Sea, where they shelled
Kola and the
Solovki. Their attempt to storm
Arkhangelsk proved abortive, as was the
siege of Petropavlovsk in
Kamchatka.
In
1855 the Western Allied Baltic Fleet tried to destroy heavily defended Russian dockyards at
Sveaborg outside
Helsinki. More than 1,000 enemy guns tested the strength of the fortress for two days. Despite the shelling, the sailors of the 120-gun ship
Russia, led by Captain Viktor Poplonsky, defended the entrance to the harbour. The Allies fired over twenty thousand shells but were unable to defeat the Russian batteries. A massive new fleet of more than 350 gunboats and mortar vessels was prepared, but before the attack was launched, the war ended.
Part of the Russian resistance was credited to the deployment of newly created blockade mines. Modern naval
mining is said to date from the Crimean War: "
Torpedo mines, if I may use this name given by Fulton to self-acting mines underwater, were among the novelties attempted by the Russians in their defenses about Cronstadt and Sebastopol", as one American officer put it in 1860 [
1].
Final phase and the peace
|
Ottoman losses (in yellow) |
Peace negotiations began in
1856 under Nicholas I's successor,
Alexander II. Under the ensuing
Treaty of Paris, the "Four Points" plan proposed earlier was largely adhered to; most notably, Russia's special privileges relating to the Danubian Principalities were transferred to the Great Powers as a group. In addition, warships of all nations were perpetually excluded from the Black Sea, once the home to the Russian fleet (which, however, had been destroyed in the course of the war). Furthermore, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the coast of that sea. The Black Sea clauses came at a tremendous disadvantage to Russia, for it greatly diminished the naval threat it posed to the Turks. Moreover, all the Great Powers pledged to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
The
Treaty of Paris stood until
1871, when France was crushed by Prussia in the
Franco-Prussian War. Whilst Prussia and several other German states united to form a powerful
German Empire, the Emperor of France,
Napoleon III, was deposed to permit the formation of a
French Republic. During his reign (which began in 1852), Napoleon III, eager for the support of Great Britain, had opposed Russia over the Eastern Question. Russian interference in the Ottoman Empire, however, did not in any significant manner threaten the interests of France. Thus, France abandoned its opposition to Russia after the establishment of a Republic. Encouraged by the decision of the French, and supported by the German minister
Otto, Fürst von Bismarck, Russia denounced the Black Sea clauses of the treaty agreed to in 1856. As Great Britain alone could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a fleet in the Black Sea.
The Crimean War caused a mass exodus of
Crimean Tatars towards the Ottoman lands, resulting in massive depopulation in the peninsula.
Having abandoned its alliance with Russia, Austria was diplomatically isolated following the war. This led to its defeat in the
Austro-Prussian War and loss of influence in most German-speaking lands. Soon after, Austria would ally with Prussia as it became the new state of Germany, creating the conditions that would lead to World War I.
The war became infamously known for military and logistical incompetence, epitomised by the
Charge of the Light Brigade which was immortalised in
Tennyson's poem.
Cholera undercut French preparations for the
siege of Sevastopol, and a violent storm on the night of
14 November 1854 wrecked nearly thirty vessels with their precious cargoes of medical supplies, food, clothing, and other necessities. The scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in the desperate winter that followed was reported by war correspondents for newspapers, prompting the work of
Florence Nightingale and introducing modern nursing methods.
Amongst the new techniques used to treat wounded soldiers, a primitive form of ambulances were used for the first time during this conflict.
The Crimean War also introduced the first tactical use of
railways and other modern inventions such as the
telegraph. The Crimean War is also credited by many as being the first modern war, employing trenches and blind artillery fire (gunners often relied on spotters rather than actually being on the battlefield). The use of the
Minié ball for shot coupled with the rifling of barrels greatly increased Allied rifle range and damage.
The Crimean War occasioned the introduction of hand rolled "paper cigars" —
cigarettes — to French and British troops, who copied their Turkish comrades in using old newspaper for rolling when their cigar-leaf rolling tobacco ran out or dried and crumbled.
It has been suggested that the Russian defeat in the Crimean War may have been a factor in
the emancipation of Russian serfs by the Czar, Alexander II, in 1861.
The British army abolished
Sale of commissions as a direct result of the disaster at the
Battle of Balaclava.
* Some action also took place on the Russian Pacific coast,
Asia Minor, the
Baltic and
White Seas
* The roots of the war's causes lay in the existing rivalry between the British and the Russians in other areas such as
Afghanistan (
The Great Game). Conflicts over control of holy places in
Jerusalem led to aggressive actions in the
Balkans, and around the
Dardanelles.
* Major battles
**
Destruction of the Ottoman fleet at Sinop -
30 November 1853;
** The
Battle of Alma -
20 September 1854**
Siege of Sebastopol (more correctly, "
Sevastopol") -
September 25,
1854 to
8 September 1855** The
Battle of Balaclava -
25 October 1854 (
see also Charge of the Light Brigade);
** The
Battle of Inkerman -
5 November 1854;
**
Battle of Eupatoria,
17 February 1855**
Battle of Chernaya River (aka "Traktir Bridge") -
25 August 1855.
**
Siege of Kars, June to
28 November 1855* It was the first war where the electric
telegraph started to have a significant effect, with the first 'live' war reporting to
The Times by
William Howard Russell, and British generals' reduced independence of action from
London due to such rapid communications. Newspaper readership informed public opinion in the United Kingdom and France as never before.
*
Florence Nightingale and
Mary Seacole came to prominence for their contributions in the field of nursing during the war.
*
Russian commanders**
Mikhail Dmitriyevich Gorchakov**
Ivan Feodorovich Paskevich**
Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov**
Eduard Ivanovich Totleben**
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Menshikov*
British commanders**
Earl of Cardigan**
Lord Raglan**
Sir Edmund Lyons (later 1st Lord Lyons)*
French commanders**
Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud**
François Certain Canrobert*
Ottoman commanders**
Abdulkerim Nadir Pasha**
Omar PashaThere is a rather charming but apocryphal story, recently repeated on the
BBC comedy programme,
QI, that goes that when the UK joined the war, Great Britain, Ireland,
Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions declared war. Berwick-upon-Tweed had been long disputed by England and Scotland, and hence was often treated as a separate entity. When the war ended, Berwick was accidentally left out of the text of the peace treaty. The Mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed was subsequently visited by an official of the
Soviet Union in 1966 to negotiate a peace settlement, declaring that "Russians can now sleep safely," (see
Berwick-upon-Tweed for more.)
Jasper Fforde
In the
Thursday Next series of novels by
Jasper Fforde, which are set in an alternative reality, the Crimean war lasts 132 years from 1853 to 1985, and creates sour relations between Imperial Russia and England.
The
protagonist of the series, Thursday Next, fought in the conflict - which is also where she met Landon Parke-Laine and where her brother Anton Next was killed.
*
Florence Nightingale*
Mary Seacole*
Roger Fenton, Crimean War photographer
*
Timothy (tortoise), naval mascot.
*
History of Europe*
History of the Balkans*
Crimean War Memorial*
Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812)*
Crimean War medals*
List of Crimean War Victoria Cross recipients*
Leo Tolstoy wrote a few short sketches on the Siege of Sebastobol, collected in
The Stebastobol Sketches. The stories detail the lives of the Russian soldiers and citizens in Sebastobol during the siege. Because of this work, Tolstoy has been called the world's first war correspondent.
*
Jasper Fforde's
Thursday Next novels, including
The Eyre Affair, are set an alternate 1985 England where the Crimean War is still being fought.
*
Beryl Bainbridge's novel
Master Georgie is set in the Crimean War.
*
George MacDonald Fraser's novel
Flashman at the Charge (1986) is also set in the Crimean War.
*
Stephen Baxter's novel
Anti-Ice starts with the siege of Sebastopol, which is shortened dramatically by a new
Anti-Ice weapon. The book asks the question - what if nuclear weapons had existed in Victorian times?
*Bamgart, Winfried (2000).
The Crimean War, 1853-1856, Arnold Publishers. ISBN 034061465X
*Ponting, Clive (2004).
The Crimean War, Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0701173904
*Pottinger Saab, Anne (1977).
The Origins of the Crimean Alliance, University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813906997
*Rich, Norman (1985).
Why the Crimean War: A Cautionary Tale, McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070522553
*Royle, Trevor (2000).
Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1403964165
*Schroeder, Paul W. (1972).
Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert, Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801407427
*Wetzel, David. (1985).
The Crimean War: A Diplomatic History, Columbia University Press. ISBN 0880330864
* Hamley,
The War in the Crimea, (London, 1891)
* Kinglake,
The Invasion of the Crimea, (nine volumes, London, 1863-87)
* Russell,
The War in the Crimea, 1854-56, (London, 1855-56)
* Marx,
The Eastern Question, 1853-56, (translated by E. M. and E. Aveling, London, 1897)
* Lodomir,
La guerre de 1853-56, (Paris, 1857)
* Kovalevski,
Der Krieg Russlands mit der Türkei in den Jahren 1853-54
, (Leipzig, 1869)
* Rein, Die Teilnahme Sardiniens am Krimkrieg und de öffentliche Meinung in Italien'', (Leipzig, 1910)
*
Loading and Firing British Muskets in the Crimean War 1854-1856*
Austria Chronology Crimean War*
France Chronology Crimean War*
Great Britain Chronology Crimean War*
Italy Chronology Crimean War*
Russia Chronology Crimean War*
Turkey Chronology Crimean War*
Crimean War Research Society.*
Immediate causes of the War detailed in context.*
The Baltic Campaign of the Crimean War*
Punch Sketches on Crimean War*
Balaclava and the Sevastopol Inquiry, 1855
