The Crimean War (October 1853–February 1856)[7][8] was fought between the Russian

Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, French Empire, the Ottoman
Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Duchy of Nassau on the other. The war was
part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over
territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Most of the conflict took place on the
Crimean Peninsula, but there were smaller campaigns in western Turkey, the Baltic Sea,
the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea.

The war has gone by different names. In Russia it is also known as the "Oriental War"
(Russian: Восточная война, Vostochnaya Voina), and in Britain at the time it was
sometimes known as the "Russian War".

The Crimean War is notorious for the logistical and tactical errors on both sides.
Nonetheless, it is considered to be the first "modern" war as it "introduced technical
changes which affected the future course of warfare," including the first tactical use of
railways and the telegraph.[9] It is also famous for the work of Florence Nightingale, who
pioneered modern nursing practices while caring for wounded British soldiers.[10]

Conflict over the Holy Land

The chain of events leading to France and Britain declaring war on Russia on 27 March
and 28 March 1854[7] can be traced to the coup d'état of 1851 in France. Napoleon III sent
his ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to attempt to force the Ottomans to recognize
France as the "sovereign authority" in the Holy Land.[11] Russia disputed this newest
change in "authority" in the Holy Land. Pointing to two more treaties, one in 1757 and
the other in 1774, 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, a violation of the London Straits Convention.[11] France's show of force,
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 in the Holy Land with control over the Christian holy places and
possession of the keys to the Church of the Nativity, previously held by the Greek
Orthodox Church.[12]

Tsar Nicholas I then deployed his 4th and 5th Army Corps along the River Danube, and
had Count Karl Nesselrode, his foreign minister, undertake talks with the Ottomans.
Nesselrode confided to Sir George Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador in St.
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]

As conflict loomed over the question 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 together.

Nicholas began courting Britain through Seymour. Nicholas insisted that he no longer
wished to expand Imperial Russia, but that he had an obligation to Christian communities
in the Ottoman Empire. The Tsar next dispatched a diplomat, Prince Menshikov, on a
special mission to the Ottoman Sublime Porte. By previous treaties, the Sultan was
committed "to protect the 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 in respect of Catholic
churches and churchmen.[14] Such a treaty would allow Russia to control the Orthodox
Church's hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire. Menshikov arrived at Constantinople on 16
February 1853 on the steam-powered warship Gromovnik. Menshikov broke protocol at
the Porte when, at his first meeting with the Sultan, he condemned the Ottomans'
concessions to the French. Menshikov also began demanding the replacement of highly-
placed Ottoman civil servants.

The British embassy at Constantinople at the time was being run by Hugh Rose, chargé
d'affaires for the British. Using his considerable 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. Rose, using his
authority as the British representative to the Ottomans, ordered a British squadron of
warships to depart early for an eastern Mediterranean cruise and head for Constantinople.
However, Rose's actions were not backed up by Whitley Dundas, the British admiral in
command of the squadron, who resented the diplomat for believing he could interfere in
the Admiralty's business. Within a week, Rose's actions were cancelled. Only the French
sent a naval task force to support the Ottomans.

First hostilities
Battle of Sinope, by Ivan Aivazovsky

At the same time, however, the British government of Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen
sent Lord Stratford. 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 the
Danubian Principalities (the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia along the Danube,
under Ottoman suzerainty, 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, especially Austria, would not
object strongly to the annexation of a few neighbouring Ottoman provinces, especially
given Russia had assisted Austria's efforts in suppressing the Revolutions of 1848.

When on 2 July 1853[15] 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. At the same time, however, the European powers hoped for a diplomatic
compromise. 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 the Russians and Ottomans. The note met with the approval of Nicholas
I; it was, however, rejected by Abdülmecid I, who felt that the document's poor phrasing
left it open to many different interpretations. Britain, France and Austria were united in
proposing amendments to mollify the Sultan, but their suggestions were ignored in the
court of St Petersburg.

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 formally declared war on 23 October 1853[7] and
proceeded to the attack, his armies moving on the Russian army near the Danube later
that month.[16] Russia and the Ottoman empire massed forces on two main fronts, the
Caucasus and the Danubian front. The Ottoman leader Omar Pasha managed to pull in
some victories on the Danubian front. In the Caucasus, the Ottomans were able to stand
ground with the help of Chechen Muslims, led by Imam Shamil.

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 at the port of Sinop,
northern Turkey. The destruction of the Turkish ships provided
Britain and France the casus belli for declaring war against Russia,
on the side of the Ottoman Empire. By 28 March 1854, after Russia
ignored an Anglo-French ultimatum to withdraw from the
Danubian Principalities, Britain and France had formally declared
war.[8][17][18] Peace attempts

Nicholas felt that because of Russian assistance in suppressing the Hungarian revolt 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 principalites, 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:

1. Russia was to give up its protectorate over the Danubian Principalities;

2. It was to abandon any claim granting it the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs on
behalf of Orthodox Christians;
3. The Straits Convention of 1841 was to be revised;
4. 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.

Siege of Sevastopol

Main article: Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)

During 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 siege, 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 suffered a fatal bullet
wound to the head and died on 30 June 1855. The city was captured in September 9,
1855, after about a year-long siege.
Azov Campaign

Main article: Siege of Taganrog

In spring 1855, the allied British-French commanders decided to send an Anglo-French

naval squadron 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 21 May 1855 the gunboats
and armed steamers attacked the seaport of Taganrog, the most important hub in
proximity to Rostov on Don. The vast amounts of food, especially bread, wheat, barley,
and rye that were amassed in the city after the outbreak of war were prevented from being
exported.

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 bombarded Taganrog for 6 1/2 hours and landed 300 troops near the Old
Stairway in the downtown Taganrog, but they were thrown back by Don Cossacks and a
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 12 July 1855 HMS 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 close enough for landing operations. The allied fleet left the Gulf of
Taganrog on September 2, 1855, with minor military operations along the Azov Sea coast
continuing until late autumn 1855.

[edit] Caucasus theatre

There was fighting between the Russians and the Turks in the Caucasus, which included
the Battle of Kurekdere in 1854, and the siege of Kars (a Turkish fortress) by the
Russians in 1855.

[edit] Baltic theatre

See also: Charles John Napier#Baltic Campaign

The Baltic was a forgotten theatre of the Crimean War. The popularisation of events
elsewhere had overshadowed the significance of this theatre, which was close to Saint
Petersburg, the Russian capital. From the beginning, the Baltic campaign was 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
Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes – although they led the largest fleet assembled
since the Napoleonic Wars – considered Russian coastal fortifications, especially the
Sveaborg fortress, too well-defended to engage, so they limited their actions to
blockading Russian trade and conducting raids on less fortified sections of the Finnish
coast

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. Raiding by
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 Hanko, Ekenäs, Kokkola, and Turku were repulsed.

The burning of tar warehouses and ships in Oulu and Raahe led to international criticism
and, in Britain, MP Thomas 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".

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 Rossiya,
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. Perhaps the most influential contributor to the development of naval mining was
inventor and civil engineer Immanuel Nobel, the father of Alfred Nobel. Immanuel
helped the war effort for Russia by applying his knowledge of industrial explosives such
as nitroglycerin and gunpowder. 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 Sevastopol", as one American officer put it in 1860.[19]

[edit] White Sea theatre

In autumn 1854 a squadron of three British warships led by HMS Miranda left the Baltic
for the White Sea, where they shelled Kola (which was utterly destroyed) and the
Solovki. Their attempt to storm Arkhangelsk proved abortive.

[edit] Pacific theatre

Main article: Siege of Petropavlovsk

Minor naval skirmishes also occurred in the Far East, where a strong British and French
Allied squadron (including HMS Pique under Rear Admiral David Price and Contre-
admiral Febrier-Despointes besieged a smaller Russian force under Rear Admiral
Yevfimy Putyatin at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. An Allied landing force
was beaten back with heavy casualties in September 1854, and the Allies withdrew. The
Russians escaped under snow in early 1855 after Allied reinforcements arrived in the
region.

The Anglo-French forces also made several small landings on Sakhalin and Urup (one of
the Kuril Islands).[20]

[edit] Italian involvement

Camillo di Cavour, under orders by Victor Emmanuel II of the Kingdom of Sardinia (also
known as Piedmont), sent an expeditionary corp of 15,000 soldiers, commanded by
General Alfonso La Marmora, to side with French and British forces during the war. This
was an attempt at gaining the favour of the French especially when the issue of uniting
Italy under the Sardinian throne would become an important matter. The deployment of
Sardinian troops to the Crimea, and the gallantry shown by them in the Battle of the
Chernaya (August 16th, 1855) and in the siege of Sevastopol, allowed the Kingdom of
Sardinia to be among the participants at the peace conference at the end of the war, where
it could address the issue of the Risorgimento to other European powers.

[edit] Greek rebellions

Main article: Epirus Revolt of 1854

When the Crimean War broke out, many Greeks felt that it was an opportunity to gain
lands inhabited by Greeks but not included in the independent Kingdom of Greece. The
Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) was still fresh in peoples' minds, as well as the
Russian intervention that had helped secure Greek independence. Furthermore, Greeks
had traditionally looked to help from fellow-Orthodox Russia.

Although the official Greek state, under severe diplomatic and military pressure from the
British and French (allies of the Ottomans), which included a naval blockade and the
occupation of the country's main port of Piraeus, refrained from actively entering the
conflict, a number of uprisings were organized in Epirus, Thessaly, Crete, with support
from individuals and groups within independent Greece, but which were all soon
suppressed. Furthermore, a small Greek volunteer force under Colonel Panos Koronaios
went to Russia and fought during the Siege of Sevastopol.

[edit] End of the war

Peace negotiations began in 1856 under Nicholas I's son and successor, Alexander II,
through the Congress of Paris. Furthermore, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to
establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. 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 defeated by Prussia in the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870–1871. While Prussia and several other German states united to
form a powerful German Empire, the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III, was deposed
to permit the formation of a Third French Republic. During his reign 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 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.

Having abandoned its alliance with Russia, Austria was diplomatically isolated following
the war. This contributed to its defeat in the 1866 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. With France, now hostile to Germany, allied with
Russia, and Russia competing with the newly re-named Austro-Hungarian Empire for an
increased role in the Balkans at the expense of the Turks, the foundations were in place
for creating the diplomatic alliances that would lead to World War I.

Notwithstanding the guarantees to preserve Ottoman territories specified in the Treaty of

Paris, Russia, exploiting nationalist unrest in the Ottoman states in the Balkans and
seeking to regain lost prestige, once again declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 24
April 1877. In this later Russo-Turkish War the states of Romania, Serbia and
Montenegro achieved independence and Bulgaria its autonomy.

Criticisms and reform

The Crimean War was notorious for military and logistical immaturity by the British
army. However, it highlighted the work of women who served as army nurses. War
correspondents for newspapers reported the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in
the desperate winter that followed and prompted the work of Florence Nightingale, Mary
Seacole, Frances Taylor and others and led to the introduction of modern nursing
methods.

The Crimean War also saw the first tactical use of railways and other modern inventions
such as the electric telegraph, with the first 'live' war reporting to The Times by William
Howard Russell. Some credit Russell with prompting the resignation of the sitting British
government through his reporting of the lacklustre shape of the British forces deployed to
the Crimea. Additionally, the telegraph reduced the independence of British overseas
possessions from their commanders in London due to such rapid communications.
Newspaper readership informed public opinion in the United Kingdom and France as
never before. It was the first European war to be photographed.
The war also employed modern military tactics, such as trenches and blind artillery fire.
The use of the Minié ball for shot, coupled with the rifling of barrels, greatly increased
Allied rifle range and damage.

The British Army system of sale of commissions came under great scrutiny during the
war, especially in connection with the Battle of Balaclava, which saw the ill-fated Charge
of the Light Brigade. This scrutiny eventually led to the abolition of the sale of
commissions.

The Crimean War was a contributing factor in the Russian abolition of serfdom in 1861:
Alexander II saw the military defeat of the Russian serf army by free troops from Britain
and France as proof of the need for emancipation.[21] The Crimean War also led to the
eventual realisation by the Russian government of its technological inferiority, namely in
its military practices as well as its military weapons.[22]

The war also led to the establishment of the Victoria Cross in 1856 (backdated to 1854),
the British Army's first universal award for valour.