Crimean War: A Visual History

The Crimean War (1853-1856) began as a Russo-Turkish war over the Holy Places and Russia's claim to protect Ottoman Christians; after Russia sank the Turkish fleet at Sinope, Britain and France joined the Ottomans in March 1854 to check Russian expansion. The Allies landed in the Crimea in September, won at the Alma, and besieged Sevastopol for 11 months through the battles of Balaclava (the Light Brigade's charge) and Inkerman and a winter that killed more men by cholera and cold than fighting. Sevastopol fell in September 1855; Sardinia had joined the Allies and Austria threatened Russia. The Treaty of Paris (1856) neutralised the Black Sea and admitted Turkey to the concert of Europe. Some 500,000 to 750,000 died, mostly of disease.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Crimean War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

British army deaths in the Crimea

Disease killed far more than battle; Nightingale's statistics drove reform.

Timeline of the Crimean War

1. 1853
   Russia occupies the principalities; Sinope
2. 1854
   Britain and France declare war; Alma; Balaclava; Inkerman
3. 1855
   Winter crisis; Nicholas dies; Sardinia joins; Malakoff; Sevastopol falls
4. 1856
   Treaty of Paris30 March.

Origins

A quarrel between Catholic and Orthodox monks over the keys of the Church of the Nativity, backed by Napoleon III and Nicholas I, escalated into Russia's demand for a protectorate over the sultan's 12 million Orthodox subjects. Russia occupied the Danubian principalities in July 1853; Turkey declared war in October; the destruction of a Turkish squadron at Sinope on 30 November outraged British opinion. Britain and France declared war on 28 March 1854; Austria's threat forced Russia out of the principalities, removing the original cause.

The Crimea

To destroy Russia's Black Sea base, 60,000 Allied troops landed at Eupatoria in September 1854, won at the Alma on the 20th and marched round to besiege Sevastopol from the south. Totleben's earthworks held; the Russian attack at Balaclava on 25 October saw the Thin Red Line, the Heavy Brigade's charge and Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade ride into the wrong valley; Inkerman on 5 November was a fog-bound soldiers' battle. Winter storms wrecked the supply ships and the British army froze and sickened outside its own harbour; the Times's reports brought down the government and Florence Nightingale to Scutari.

Sevastopol and peace

Reinforced and re-supplied by a railway from Balaclava, the Allies bombarded through 1855; the Russians lost at the Chernaya in August, and on 8 September the French took the Malakoff redoubt while the British failed at the Redan; the Russians blew up the forts and evacuated. Kars fell to Russia in Anatolia; the Baltic fleet bombarded Sveaborg. Alexander II, succeeding Nicholas in March 1855, accepted terms; the Treaty of Paris (30 March 1856) demilitarised the Black Sea, guaranteed Ottoman integrity and freed the Danube. Russia denounced the naval clauses in 1870.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• Second French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)
• Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867 to 1918)
• Qajar Empire (1789 to 1925)

Wars of the same era and region

• Wars of Italian Unification (Risorgimento) (1848 to 1871)
• Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War (1763 to 1864)
• Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 1905)
• Greek War of Independence (1821 to 1829)
• French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792 to 1815)

8 surprising things about the Crimean War

1. The Charge of the Light Brigade lost 110 killed of 670 in 20 minutes; Tennyson's poem was published six weeks later.
2. Florence Nightingale's polar-area diagrams showing disease deaths pioneered statistical graphics.
3. It was the first war reported by telegraph and war correspondent (W. H. Russell of the Times) and photographed (Roger Fenton).
4. The balaclava helmet, cardigan and raglan sleeve are all named from the war.
5. Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse refused by Nightingale, set up her own 'British Hotel' near Balaclava.
6. Leo Tolstoy served as an artillery officer at Sevastopol and wrote his Sevastopol Sketches there.
7. The Victoria Cross was created in 1856 for the war and the first crosses were cast from captured Russian guns, by tradition.
8. The Russian army lost more men to typhus and cholera marching to the Crimea than in battle.

Sources

• Crimean War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Crimean War Wikipedia
• Crimean War World History Encyclopedia
• Orlando Figes, Crimea: The Last Crusade (2010) Allen Lane

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