Crimean War

The causes

The "Eastern Question" refers to the rivalries among the great powers over the inheritance of a weakened Ottoman Empire. Russia wanted easier access to the Mediterranean through the Straits and presented itself as the protector of Orthodox Christians. France, a Catholic power, backed the custody of the holy places in Jerusalem against the privileges claimed by Russia, and the British wanted to limit Russian influence. In 1853, Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities, which triggered war with the Ottoman Empire.

Since the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed in 1774, Russia had presented itself as protector of the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire, which gave it a pretext for intervention in the Balkans. When insurgent Greece obtained its independence, recognized in 1830 after the destruction of the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet at Navarino in 1827, the Eastern Question became a European affair. The United Kingdom defended Ottoman integrity to contain Russian expansion toward the Mediterranean. In 1852, a dispute over guardianship of the Holy Places in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, between Catholic and Orthodox clergy, set Paris against St Petersburg. Prince Menshikov's mission to Constantinople in 1853 failed, and the occupation of the Danubian Principalities in July 1853 precipitated the conflict.

The course of the war

In November 1853, the Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman fleet at Sinope, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. In March 1854, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Russia and sent troops to Crimea, where they defeated the Russians at the Alma in September 1854. They then besieged Sevastopol, the main Russian military port in the region. At Balaclava, the charge of the British Light Brigade, made on a confused order, remains famous for its heavy losses.

The siege of Sevastopol lasted nearly a year, in appalling conditions: cold, mud, epidemics and shortages of supplies struck soldiers on both sides. At Scutari, near Constantinople, the British nurse Florence Nightingale organized care for the wounded, a landmark in the history of military care. Sevastopol fell in September 1855. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1856, neutralized the Black Sea: neither Russia nor the Ottoman Empire could keep a fleet of warships there.

The operations went beyond Crimea alone. In August 1854, an Anglo-French fleet seized the Russian fortress of Bomarsund, in the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea. In Anatolia, the Ottoman fortress of Kars was besieged by the Russians and fell in November 1855. Troops from the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which had entered the war in January 1855, fought in Crimea from May, thereby extending the alliance to an Italian state. This commitment aimed to have the Italian cause recognized in the peace negotiations.

On the ground, fighting was bloody. General Pélissier, who took command of French troops in May 1855, conducted the final operations against Sevastopol. At Inkerman, in November 1854, British and French troops repulsed a Russian attack in fog, in hand-to-hand fighting. In August 1855, the Russians attempted to break the siege at the Battle of the Chernaya and failed. On 8 September 1855, French troops seized the Malakoff bastion, key to the defense of Sevastopol, and the city was evacuated by the Russians the following day.

Austria, neutral but threatening, sent Russia an ultimatum in June 1854, and Russian troops evacuated the Danubian Principalities that summer. A conference convened in Vienna in spring 1855 failed for lack of agreement on peace terms. In February 1856, the Congress of Paris opened and established peace: the principalities were placed under collective guarantee, and the Ottoman Empire was admitted into the European Concert. In practice, Russia thereby gave up its exclusive protection of the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire.

The consequences

Russia, weakened, had to give up any naval presence in the Black Sea. Nicholas I died in 1855, in the middle of the war, and his successor Alexander II launched major reforms, including the abolition of serfdom. The Ottoman Empire was preserved, but remained weakened. Piedmont-Sardinia gained a place in European negotiations, which later served the cause of Italian unification. The war also left its mark on the history of war journalism.

The war was one of the first to be photographed, with Roger Fenton's images of 1855, and one of the first in which newspapers used the telegraph to transmit news from the front. Historians debate its responsibility: it arose less from a deliberate plan than from diplomatic misunderstandings and rivalries of prestige. For Russia, defeat accelerated the reforms of Alexander II. In 1871, Russia obtained the repeal of the clause that had neutralized the Black Sea. In 1860, Florence Nightingale founded a nursing school in London that inspired reform of military care.

Timeline

1. 1853The Ottoman fleet is destroyed at Sinope by the Russian fleet
2. 1854France and the United Kingdom declare war on Russia
3. 1854Start of the siege of Sevastopol
4. 1855Fall of Sevastopol
5. 1856Treaty of Paris: the Black Sea is neutralized

Key figures

• Nicholas I, tsar who committed Russia to the war, died in 1855
• Napoleon III, emperor of the French, ally of the British against Russia
• Florence Nightingale, British nurse who organized care for the wounded
• Lord Raglan, commander in chief of the British troops in Crimea