The Crimean War

 

Thesis: What were the causes of the Crimean War? How did post war hositility

complicate European and international relations?

 

Immediate Causes

 

- The Franco-Russian dispute over the holy places in Palestine was the immediate cause of the Crimean War.

- Turkey controlled Palestine, Egypt, and large chunks of the Middle East. The Port (Moslem ruler of Turkey) had given privileges to protect the Christians and their churches in the Holy Land to many nations.

- In 1850 Napoleon III requested the restoration to French Catholics of the capitulations of 1740. This meant that the French wanted the key to the Church of the Nativity in the old city of Jerusalem and the right to place a silver star on Christ's birthplace in Bethlehem.

- The French threatened military action if the Porte did not give way and the Russians threatened to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia if he did.

- The Porte gave a yes answer to both foreign parties. This Turkish duplicity was soon discovered. The French then sent the warship Charlemagne to Constantinople and a squadron of ships to the Bay of Tripoli. In December 1852, having no other choice, the Porte gave in to Paris and let the French enter.

- Russia responded to this by mobilizing two army corps and sending his ambassador, Menshikov, to Constantinople.

- Menshikov's official reason for being in Constantinople was to demand the restoration of Greek rights. His real mission was to propose a secret alliance and the protection of all orthodox laymen under Turkish rule, that meant some 12 million subject of the Porte.

- British then got into the act through a diplomatic operator in Constantinople by the name of Stratford de Redcliffe. He outfoxed Menshikov who got concessions on the Greek rights issue but non of the other demands. Meshikov returned to Russia.

- When the Menshikov Mission became public knowledge it strengthened the anti-Russian faction in the British cabinet. The British decided it was worth a war to keep and expand their interest in the Eastern Mediterranean. In June 1853 an Anglo-French naval force entered the Dardanels. In July the Russian army invaded the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (modern day Rumania).

- The war could still have been prevented. Eleven different projects for pacification had been drafted by the end of 1853. Yhe only important one was the Vienna Note to Turkey and Russia by France, Austria, Prussia, and England. This outlined that the Porte was not to make any mjor decision with consent of France and Russia. Russia accepted this condition, but Turkey naturally rejected it. Nicholas I and Francis Joseph of Austria held a summit at Olmütz. Nicholas promised not to intervene in Turkey or to extract some right to protect orthodox Christians under Turkish control. England turned this deal down.

The War

 

- October 1853 Turkey took action and declared war on Russia. The Anglo-French fleet now penetrated further into the straits and anchored in the Bosphorus. In November off the coast of Sinope in the Black Sea, meanwhile, the Turkish fleet was defeated by the Russians. Any settlement after this was impossible. The press in England and France became violent.

In January 1854, the Anglo-French fleet sailed into the Black Sea. France, England and Turkey then made a formal alliance. When the Russian troops crossed the Danube, the Turkish war merged into a war against the European coalition. This was Russia had tried to avoid

-1855 Piedmont joined the war. Prussia remained neutral. Austria, although not belligerent had a definitely anti-Russian policy and came to the brink of war twice. Prussia and Austria signed a defensive alliance. Then they joined France and England in a diplomatic demarche demanding the withdrawal of Russia from Moldavia and Wallachia.

- Meanwhile, the Vienna Conference, in session throughout the war, formulated a peace proposal:

* European guarantee for a Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia and Serbia;

* freedom of navigation on the Danube River;

* revision of the Straits Convention of 1841;

* five-power (England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia) protection of Christians in Turkey instead of only by Russia

- By the end of the summer, the Anglo-French forces had driven the Russians out of Wallachia and Moldavia. The fighting should have ended there, but it was decided that the great Russian naval base at Sevastopol was a direct threat to the future security of the region and in September 1854 the French and British landed their armies on the Crimean peninsula.

-The allies marched southward to invest Sevastopol. On the way they fought their first major battle. At the River Alma, theRussian army tried unsuccessfully to prevent the Allies crossing the river and scaling the heights beyond. The defeated Russians retreated inland and as the siege of Sevastopol began.

- A regrouped Russian army was hiding on the flank of the British army who were using the inlet of Balaklava as its supply harbour. Sevastopol was invulnerable to any kind of seaborne attack and her landward defences were also formidable. Sevastopol's two major defence strong points were the Redan and the Malakoff bastion, but they would soon by overrun by the British.

- As the British and French prepared their siegeworks the Russian army on the British right flank struck. This was known as the Battle of Balaklava. However, it resulted only in the near annihilation of the British light cavalry.

- The equipment of  the Allies was superior to that of the Russians; however, there was no quick victory. The Allies suffered millitary disaster after millitary diaster. The famous "Charge of the Light Brigade" was only the most blatant example of allied military blundering. Russia did better

with the Turks and won the battle of Kars, their only victory.

- Finally in 1856, Sevastopol fell. This signified the end of the Crimean

War.

Aftermath

 

- Sevastopol was exchanged back to the Russians for Kars.

- A piece of southern Bessarabia was ceded to Moldavia to ensure internal navigation of the Danube.

- All countries involved in the war promised not to interfere in Turkey anymore.

- The Straits remained closed to warships, and the Black Sea, was neutralized.

- Moldavia and Wallachia were put under Turkish suzerainty. The same fate awaited Serbia, with Turkish troops allowed to garrison the territory.

- Russia, was forbidden to station troops on the Aland.

 

 

 

 

The Treaty of Paris

 

- The Treaty of Paris, which negotiated the agreements of the aftermath of the Crimean war had a definate anti-Russian theme to it. It is then no surprise that Russia remained hostile to Britain, France and Austria.

- This hostility proved itself in later wars such as the Franco-Austrian War of 1859, which began the unification of Italy, Russia chose not to get involved in this war, much to the dismay of Austria. It is also the main reason Russia sold Alaska the United States, as she was eager to complicate American relations with England.

 

Bibliography

 

- http://www.hillsdale.edu/dept/History/Documents/War/19Crim.htm

- http://www.hargreave-mawson.demon.co.uk/cwrs1.html

- http://www.4freeessays.com/essays/1696.shtml

- Goldfrank, David M. "The Origins of the Crimean War "

- Lambert, Andrew D "The Crimean War : British Grand Strategy, 1853-56"

- Conacher, J. B. "Britain and the Crimea, 1855-56 : Problems of War and Peace"