The Crimean War 1853-1856

Real Time History (2023)

Film Review

During the Crimean War, Britain, France and Sardinia* allied with the Ottoman Empire to prevent Russia from seizing Ottoman territory in Eastern Europe.

This film begins by tracing the gradual 19th century decline of the Ottoman Empire (commonly known as “The Sick Man of Europe”), owing to the Turks’ failure to match in technological advances. The French invaded and seized Algeria from the Ottoman Turks in 1830. Likewise there were numerous Russo-Turkish Wars between 1760-1820, as Russia sought warm water to facilitate year-round to shipping.

In 1852 after the Ottomans granted Roman Catholics exclusive access to Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, Russian troops occupied Moldavia and Wallachia along the Danube. They demanded to be granted protectorship of all orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

In response the Ottomans (with the support of long time Russian adversaries France and Britain) declared war on Russia on October 4, 1853. Their combined forces attacked the independent (under nominal Russian control) Caucasus states of Georgia and Circassia, with the ultimate goal of capturing Russia’s main Black Sea naval base in Sevastapol. By winter 1854, the fighting had reached a stalemate with each of the invading armies occupying small regions of Crimea.

The French committed 430,000 troops to the Crimean War and the British 153,000. The Kingdom of Sardinia (in modern day Italy) committed 15,000 because they wanted Napoleon III’s support for Italian unification.

This was the first industrial war, relying on mass industrial productions of guns and artillery. It was also the first Western war to incorporate trench warfare** and the first in history to feature daily news reporting with photographs.

The war ended following Russia defeat at Sevastopol in 1855. In signing the 1856 Treaty of Paris, the Russians agreed to withdraw from the Danubian principalities, to give parts of Bessarabia back to Moldova, to demilitarize the Black Sea and to abandon the defense of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans experienced very slight gains in their territory.

The two most memorable events of the Crimean War are the founding of a British hospital for the wounded by Florence Nightingale and the Charge of the Light Brigade. This massacre occurred when thousands of British troops misunderstood an order and charged the Russian cavalry by mistake. The famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, an artillery officer during the Crimean war and was profoundly disillusioned by its immense “cruelty, servitude and corruption.” There was also massive public anger in the UK over the loss of so many troops to defend the Ottoman empire.

Total troop losses (most from disease) totaled:

• Britain 22,000
• Sardinia 2,300
• France 100,000
• Russia 450,000
• Ottomans 45,000

Overall injured Russians had the best survival rates, owing to their introduction of triage*** during the Crimean war. Other European countries didn’t introduce triage until World War I.

*Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean and was an independent country prior to Italian unification in 1871

**Which the British learned from the New Zealand Maori during the 1845-46 land wars.

***Triage is the process of sorting and prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition to determine who needs immediate medical attention first. It is commonly used in mass casualty emergencies to maximize the number of survivors.