15.2 The Crimean War

The Charge of the Light Brigade

In 1853 war broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Since the time of Peter the Great, Russian foreign policy sought access to the Turkish Straits. Whatever would weaken the Ottoman hold on the Black Sea was in Russia’s interest. Russia went to war against the Turks in 1828 - 1829 in defense of Greek independence and secured, in the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople, former Turkish territory on the Black Sea coast south to the Danube River. In 1853 Czar Nicholas I demanded the Turks cede to Russia the Danubian regions of Moldavia and Wallachia (together known as the Danubian Principalities) and dispatched troops to occupy those territories. In addition Russia demanded that the Turkish Sultan recognize Russia’s claim to protection of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian populations. (Most of the Slavic peoples of the Turkish-controlled Balkan region were Eastern Orthodox Christians.)

Referred to in diplomatic circles as “The Sick Man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire was clearly weakening and possibly on the verge of disintegration. Nationalist aspirations among the Empire’s Balkan peoples were particularly worrisome. As were the Russians, the Balkan peoples were Slavic in language and culture and Orthodox in religion. Russia presented itself as sympathetic to Balkan nationalism. Were Ottoman political control to collapse in the Balkans, it would create a power vacuum that would encourage further Russian expansionism, possibly resulting in Russia taking Constantinople and the Straits. This possibility was unacceptable to France, Britain, and Austria. France, now under Napoleon III, was asserting its presence as a great power. France had a long history of close commercial and political relations with the Ottoman Empire and saw itself as the protector of Christian sites and persons in the Holy Land. France also aspired to build the Suez Canal in Egypt, a province of the Turkish empire. Britain was already facing Russian expansion in central Asia (a threat to British interests in India) and did not want to see Russia have access to the Mediterranean. Austria, with its own Slavic populations, did not want to see the growth of Russian-encouraged nationalism in the Balkans. Nor did Austria, already bordered by Russia in Poland, want to be outflanked to the east by a powerful Russia dominant in the Balkans. Austria also had expansionist ambitions in the Balkans. Despite vigorous diplomatic efforts to achieve accommodation, the positions of all three powers signaled the Ottoman Empire that it should resist Russia’s demands. In a show of support for the Turks, French and British naval units were sent to the Straits. The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia in October 1853.

Initially, the war went badly for the Turks. A Turkish naval squadron was defeated by a Russian fleet, giving Russia control of the Black Sea. In early 1854 Britain and France ordered their warships into the Black Sea, whereupon Russia broke diplomatic relations with the two countries. When Russian armies crossed the Danube, Britain and France declared war. Austria, too, rattled the saber by demanding that Russia withdraw from Moldavia and Wallachia and began to assemble its forces along its Galician and Transylvanian borders. Russia, not wanting a wider war, grudgingly agreed to withdraw its troops from the Danubian Principalities which were occupied by Austrian forces. Austria then (August 1854) attempted to broker peace by inviting the belligerents to meet in Vienna. When Russia rejected allied conditions for peace, British and French armies were landed in the Crimea, the diamond-shaped peninsula that projects Russia into the northern reaches of the Black Sea. Hence, the war’s name.

It was assumed by both the British and French that the war would be short and victory would be easy. Britain and France were industrial nations. Their armies carried the most modern of firearms. Britain had the most powerful navy in the world. Its warships were steamships, fast and heavily armed. Not yet having experienced the Industrial Revolution, Russia’s military resources seemed, by comparison, primitive.

Yet, even the best of armies are dependent upon the quality of their leadership and supply. The British commanders in the Crimea would prove to be incompetent and inept. They were led by the aged Lord Fitzroy Raglan, a veteran of Waterloo. Seemingly senile and confused, he constantly referred to the enemy as the “French.” Among his aides were his five nephews, all of whom held their military commissions by virtue of their aristocratic birth. The British likewise underestimated what it would take to maintain armies in the field during a long siege. Food, winter uniforms and boots, and medicine were in woefully short supply.

The allied strategy in the Crimea was to capture the port city of Sevastopol. As the city’s fortifications proved invulnerable to naval bombardment, it was determined to take the city by besieging it by land. This, too, proved difficult. Russian resistance was stubborn, and what battlefield victories the allies had were of little strategic consequence.

One such battle (October 1854) fought by the British at Balaclava featured the infamous charge of the light brigade. Through a misunderstanding of orders the light brigade, a force of mounted cavalrymen armed with lances, swords, and pistols, was ordered to attack a line of Russian artillery on the heights at the far end of a narrow valley. It was known by the British commander that the Russians had positioned cannons on the hills flanking the valley, yet he ordered his horsemen to advance. Resplendent in their colorful uniforms and without a chance of success, they charged up the valley and were cut down by the Russian guns. Their bravery was later memorialized by Britain’s poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson in his “Charge of the Light Brigade.” (“ … Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do and die; Into the valley of death rode the six hundred …”)

Beyond poetic imagery, however, was the disturbing reality of the war. The Crimean War was the first war to be witnessed and reported by what we would call today the media. British and French newspaper journalists were at the battle lines and in the camps. What they saw horrified and alarmed them. The blundering of the commanders and failure of the government to provide the armies with adequate rations and supplies was devastating both manpower and morale. Far more men died of disease than were killed on the battlefield. Cholera, typhus, and dysentery swept through the armies, killing thousands. With the recent (1844) invention of the telegraph, reporters’ dispatches from the Crimea were published within a day of the events being reported. Back home in Britain and France the news was eagerly devoured by the reading public. Public reaction to the suffering of British soldiers resulted in a cabinet crisis wherein several members of the government were compelled to resign.