Russia and the Crimean War

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Russia and the Crimean War
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State of Europe 1800s-1850s

• Britain and France expanded
• Russia fell behind
• Russia tried to establish ports and a navy in the
  Black Sea
• Britain and France grew wary of Russias
  expansionism

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State of Europe 1800s-1850s

• Also, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing
• Religious conflicts between Muslims and Orthodox
  Christians
• Russia saw an opportunity to secure valuable land

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Crimean War

• 1853-1856 This diplomatic war between Russia
  and Turkey grew to include the British and the
  French on Turkish side. Later Sardinia- Piedmont
  would also join on the side of the Ottoman Empire
  
• Causes
• 1)       Struggle for control of the keys to holy
  sites within the Ottoman Empire and Jerusalem
  between Orthodox monks and Roman Catholic monks.
• 2) Control of the waterways between the
  Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

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Ottoman Empire
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Ottoman Empire Sick Man of Europe
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The Balkans
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Russia as defender of Balkan peoples

• Christian Orthodox
• Serbs
• Greeks
• Roumanians
• Bulgarians
• Slavs (Slavdom)
• Serbs
• Bulgarians
• Slovenes
• Croats

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Russian Expansion Warm water port?
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The Crimean War

• July 1853 Under pretense of protecting Orthodox
  Christians, Russia invades Moldavia and
  Wallachia, and sieges Ottoman forts lining the
  Danube River
• October 1853 Ottoman Empire declares war on
  Russia
• March 1854 France and England declare war on
  Russia

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The Crimean War

• June 1854 The Austrian Empire enters the war on
  the side of the Ottomans
• This is a surprise to Nicholas due to the Russian
  help in 1848 in suppressing rebellion in 1848
• This would have ended the war, if not for
  warmongering stirred up by British public opinion
  and newspapers

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Crimean War, the Combatants

• Russian Empire 700,000 troops
• Bulgarian legion 7000 troops

• Ottoman Empire 300,000 troops
• British Empire 250,000 troops
• French Empire 400,000 troops
• Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont 30,000 troops
• Total 980,000 troops

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Map of Crimean War, 1853-1856
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Meanwhile in Britain

• A fantastical new creation known as the
  photograph had just been invented

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Meanwhile in Britain

• The Crimean War was the first media war, where
  the public was kept up to date daily through
  newspapers and photographs
• This led to warmongering in newspapers, because
  the leaders wanted to demonstrate Britains
  military might
• A large part of why the war went on so long

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Roger Fenton
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Battle of Balaklava (October 1854)Charge of the
Light BrigadeLord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892
poem 1880)
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IMPACT

• Art and literature of the Romantic Era glorified
  the war
• The Charge of the Light Brigade
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,   Half a league
onward,All in the valley of Death   Rode the
six hundred."Forward, the Light Brigade!"Charge
for the guns!" he saidInto the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
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Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
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November 1854 Nightingale and nurses arrived at
Scutari
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Endgame

• March 2, 1855 Nicholas I died
• Alexander II vowed change
• Armistice signed on 29 February 1856
• Treaty of Paris 30 March 1856
• Black Sea became neutral territory, no warships
• Ottoman independence and territorial integrity
  were to be respected.
• Ottomans had to proclaim Muslims and non-Muslims
  equal before the law.
• Moldavia and Wallachia back under nominal Ottoman
  rule
• Russia lost territory it had been granted at the
  mouth of the Danube
• Russia forced to abandon its claims to protect
  Christians in the Ottoman Empire in favour of
  France.

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Death toll

• Allies
• 374,600 total dead
• Turks total dead and wounded 200,000 est.total
  dead est. 50,000
• French 100,000, of which 10,240 killed in
  action 20,000 died of wounds ca 70,000 died of
  disease
• British 2,755 killed in action 2,019 died of
  wounds 16,323 died of disease
• Sardinians-Italians 2,050 died from all causes

• Russians
• (estimates vary)
• High ca 522,000 killed, wounded and died of
  disease
• Medium 256,000 killed, wounded and died of
  disease, of which dead 60,000 to 110,000
• Low ca 143,000 dead and 81,000 injured, of which
  25,000 killed in action 16,000 died of wounds
  89,000 died of disease

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Consequences of War

• Isolation of Austria
• This isolation was one of the reasons of its
  defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and loss
  of influence in most of the German-speaking
  lands. Soon after, Austria would ally with
  Prussia as it became the new German Empire,
  creating the conditions that would lead to the
  First World War.
• War correspondents change warfare
• Nursing professionalized
• Britain and France on same side

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SIGNIFICANCE

• The war revealed Russias technological and
  economic backwardness.
• To end the conflict Russia had to agree to
  demilitarize the Black Sea and halt its expansion
  into the Balkans

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Alexander II and Serfdom

• Was Russian Tsar(1855-1881)- in nature was a
  conservative ruler, however he saw that serfdom
  was the major problem in Russias inability to
  Westernize. told serf owners that reform would be
  better if it came from above peacefully rather
  than below in revolts
• 1861 freed serfs
• In theory, emancipation of serfs should have
  provided serfs with full citizenship, instead
  they received an average of about half the land
• Peasants had to pay large sums for land because
  it was own collectively making each peasant
  jointly responsible for the payments of all the
  families in the village (socialism anyone?). The
  government hoped that collectivized
  responsibility would strengthen the village as a
  social unit and prevent the formation of a
  landless peasantry. This however prevented
  individual peasants from improving their status

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Russian Reforms under Alexander II

• serfdom abolished
• positives serfs gain rights to marry without
  permission, to buy and sell land, to sue in court
  and to pursue trades
• negatives over a forty-nine year period serfs
  have to pay back, including interest, their
  landlords in order to receive their land
• local government reform local government run by
  zemstvos, a system of provincial and county
  councils, which proved to be largely ineffective
• judicial reform included equality before the
  law, impartial hearings, uniform procedures,
  judicial independence, and trial by jury
• military reform service requirements lowered
  from twenty-five to fifteen years and discipline
  is relaxed slightly
• repression in Poland Poland basically becomes a
  Russian province under Russian laws and language

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Russian Revolutionaries people or groups not
satisfied by Alexanders reforms

• Alexander Herzen started a movement called
  populism, based on the communal life of peasants
• Vera Zasulich attempted to assassinate the
  military governor of St. Petersburg
• The Peoples Will terrorist group that
  assassinated Alexander II

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Industrialization

• 1860 government encouraged and subsidized
  private railway companies and construction boomed
• 1860 1,250 miles of railroad, by 1880 15,500
  miles
• Enabled wheat exports in what became industrial
  suburbs St. Petersburg and Moscow
• Railroads gave rise to territorial expansion in
  south and east
• Military force strengthened nationalism grew
  with imperial expansion in Central Asia
• Also contributed to spread of Marxian philosophy
• Under direction of minister of finance, began to
  build government built state owned railroads such
  as Trans-Siberian Railroad (from Moscow to
  Vladivostok)
• Wanted to place backwards Russia on the gold
  standard of the civilized world
• ½ of worlds oil

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Government Reform

• 1864 creation of local government called zemstvo
• Local assembly elected by three class system of
  towns, peasant villages, and land owners
• Dealt with local issues and remained subordinate
  to the traditional bureaucracy and local nobility
• Russian liberals hoped that zemstvo would lead to
  an elected national parliament
• Most successful was reform of legal system which
  established independent courts and equality
  before the law

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Education

• 1864 legislation passed requiring primary and
  secondary schools to observe moral and religious
  principles and accept entrants of any social
  estate
• Formation of intelligentsia-individuals of at
  least secondary, western education trained for
  service in imperial system, felt independent from
  patrimonial and hierarchical society and troubled
  cultural and economic distance between elites and
  masses
• Universities governed themselves students
  couldnt form own associations
• Women were allowed to take courses but could not
  earn degrees

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Censorship

• Term Glasnost meaning openness was introduced,
  eased censorship of daily newspapers, books, and
  periodicals, yet Ministry of Interior maintained
  right to withdraw from circulation any
  publication that had dangerous orientation
• Many tested censorship by articulating views
  that were mildly nonconformist
• one kopek newspapers and the Russkoe slavo(the
  Russian World)- highlighted social problems such
  as crime, alcoholism, prostitution, and disease
  as well as suffering of peasantry, workers, and
  immigrants.
• Student demonstrations in the 1860s arose from
  inadequate financial support from the stat,
  malnutrition, and bad living conditions.
• the populist movement of the 1870s-1890s
  rejected violence and believed that their task
  was to educate the peasants about their role in
  Russian society serve the masses
• The group Peoples Will believed that political
  assassination was the only way to bring change

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The Church/Religion

• To be Orthodox is to be Russian
• Russian icons are typically paintings on wood,
  often small, though some in churches and
  monasteries may be as large as a table top.
  (shown above is Rublev's Trinity)
• body of Christians who are united under the
  Patriarch of Moscow
• During this time the church served as an
  employment agency and social security office for
  the impoverished
• Reflected uncertainty of the Russian people about
  their status in the empire.
• The church was poverty stricken, overshadowed
  by the secular state yet spiritual revival took
  place. The 19th century saw the rise of
  starchestvo under Paisiy Velichkovsky and his
  disciples at the Optina Monastery. Offered
  comfort and counseling to ordinary people.

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Alexander III

• autocratic and repressive
• rolled back his fathers reforms
• strengthened secret police and censorship of the
  press