Crimean War

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The Crimean War is one of the most significant wars of the 19th century, which radically changed the world's geopolitics and broke down barriers and agreements that had previously guaranteed stability and security in Europe. The reasons for this war were many, and it’s hard to identify the main ones.

The Great Game
The “Great Game” is the generally accepted name for the confrontation between the British and Russian Empires in Asia, which can also be called the colonial division of Asia between these two states. Wanting to reduce the chances of hostile attacks from the East (especially from the various invading semi-nomadic tribes) and to gain free access to markets and resources of those lands, the Russian Empire has pursued a policy of aggression and colonialism in Asia since Peter the Great, and it gained significant progress in the 18th-19th centuries, annexing and capturing many khanates and kingdoms. The British Empire in Asia pursued a colonial policy with the help of semi-private enterprises and local supporters, and even such power over India was enough to recognize it as the official imperial property. Property that it didn’t want to lose or give to Russia. Fearing a Russian invasion of India, the British Empire devised a plan to colonize Asia, creating a series of allied or controlled buffer states between the two world powers. This plan did not work in most cases: Russian troops inflicted heavy defeats on the Ottomans, Persians, and small khanates, which had no support from the rest of the great powers, gaining control of large tracts of land, which in turn increased the military presence in the region. Both sides also engaged in silent or open support for forces hostile to the other empire (emirates and tribes of the Caucasus against Russia and Afghans with Persians against Britain) and espionage.

Perhaps the greatest victim of this game was the Ottoman Empire. Due to large-scale corruption among officials and religious conservatism, the country was in decline, which benefited other world powers who were increasingly interfering in their domestic policies under the pretext of protecting Christian minorities. Nationalist riots and rebellions in the Balkans were only a symptom of much deeper internal problems. Initially, the forces of the post-Napoleonic Holy Alliance supported the Ottomans in the fight against the Greeks, honoring their agreement to suppress nationalist uprisings that threatened European stability, but the brutality with which the Muslim Ottomans dealt with the Orthodox Greeks caused a scandal among European media at the time, forcing Russia, at the very least, to withdraw its backing. The international support of Serbs and Greeks led to a full-scale defeat of the Ottomans and an identity crisis. Sensing this, the global powers began the gradual colonization of the Ottomans: France captured Algeria, the Russian Empire captured the Danube Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the British Empire forced the Ottomans to sign trade agreements that removed tariffs on British goods and gave them access to Ottoman markets and resources. The latter led to a change in British policy, the desire to tear the Ottomans to pieces was replaced by the desire to preserve the stability of the Ottoman Empire for as long as possible. It also allowed Britain to include the Ottoman Empire in its plan to create a buffer zone between it and Russia, which in turn also forced Russia to look for ways to influence the Ottomans. These were the agreements on military aid and the obligation to recognize the Russian Empire as a guarantor of the security of the Orthodox living in the Ottoman lands.

The Russian Empire saw the renunciation of exclusive rights over the Bosphorus as a sufficient compromise to the British, while the British saw the continuation of the reformed Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi as a serious threat to its interests. Attempts by the Ottomans to modernize and implant the idea of Ottomanism were opposed by both nationalists and the internal bureaucracy alike.

Holy Alliance
As the founder of the Holy Alliance, a conservative-reactionary union of Austria, Prussia, and Russia created to preserve the status quo and suppress nationalist uprisings, Russia was hated by world liberals who saw the brutal suppression of the 1830 November Uprising of the Polish people and outright threats to destroy the Belgian nationalist movement of the same year as barbarism and savagery of the "gendarme of Europe". The suppression of the liberal Hungarian and Wallachian-Moldavian uprisings of 1848 only intensified this hatred.

And there wasn’t much love for Russia among Catholics and Orthodox Christians who did not belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. Under the guise of quelling the uprising, Polish Catholic churches and organizations were destroyed, and Moldovan Old Believer Cossacks were persecuted in Moldova and Wallachia. Even loyal Knights Hospitalier suffered persecution. Relations with France, although perceived as friendly by the Russian Empire itself, were very tense, as Nicholas despised Louis-Philippe and his "liberal" image of a "king of the people" and was secretly preparing the Holy Alliance to act as a possible anti-French coalition.

Thus, when, as a result of his liberal revolution, the king abdicated and was replaced by Napoleon III, creating the Second French Republic, the French government bared no illusions about Russia's reaction. Dissatisfied with the current status quo, all of Napoleon III's foreign policy was about the restoration of the French former greatness, creating its alliance of forces against the Holy Alliance. Supporting the Vatican, Napoleon III entered into a religious confrontation with Nicholas for the right to protect the Christian minority in Palestine. Combining revanchist sentiment within France, Catholic support, and liberal hatred of the Russian Empire, Napoleon relied on national support for the inevitable conflict. The French fleet entered the Aegean Sea. The Russians mobilized troops near the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and, citing the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, activated the Black Sea Fleet.

When the two sides inevitably began to increase military presence on the borders of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian government initially tried to reconcile with Britain. Although relations between it and the Russian Empire were not the best, diplomats relied on the British reluctance to repeat the Napoleonic Wars. These hopes were proven wrong, as the British media supported an attack on the Russian Empire, and in exchange for military support, British diplomats (possibly despite the Parliaments' wishes) persuaded the Ottomans to meet only half of Russia's demands and renounce the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. In response, the Russian Empire severed diplomatic relations with the Ottomans and occupied Moldova with Wallachia. Compromise proposals from world powers failed to achieve any level of support, there was a surge of Islamism and nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, and British Navy joined forces with the French.

The War itself
The first phase of the war was in Russian favour. They successfully resisted Ottoman forces in the Caucasus and the Danube, quickly capturing unprepared Silistra, forcing Austria to side with the Ottomans, encircling Russian troops, and declaring an ultimatum. The Russian Empire was forced to agree to it. The further the war went, the worse the situation was for the Russian Empire, as the Allies did not allow them to withdraw from this war on their terms.

But the Allied victory wasn’t as convincing either: although they eventually captured Sevastopol and inflicted many losses on Russian troops, the other fronts were not so successful, and the capture of Sevastopol was accompanied by terrible losses and humanitarian catastrophe among the allies. The confident statements of the new Russian emperor about the renewal of the Balkan front and his successes against the Ottomans in the Caucasus brought all sides to a standstill. Only the threat of Austria and Prussia to enter the war on the side of the Allies forced Alexander II to sit down at the negotiating table, which resulted in the Treaty of Paris of 1856, by which: • Russia lost control of Wallachia, Moldova, and the Bessarabian lands to the Danube River. The Danube itself is declared a free zone. Captured territories are exchanged. • The Russian and Ottoman Empires are prohibited from keeping a navy in the Black Sea. They are also prohibited from building fortifications in certain areas. • The Emirate of Bukhara was transformed from a Russian Protectorate into a territory controlled jointly by the British and Russian Empires. • Christians of the Ottoman Empire were to be jointly protected by all Christian great powers, restoring the status quo. • Wallachia and Moldova de jure became neutral territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire and a coalition of world powers. De facto, it falls under the leadership of Austria.

Conclusion
The Crimean War was the first large-scale war of world European powers, which in turn led to the creation and spread of new civil and military technologies, ethnogenesis, and changing of national and ethnic borders. Having suffered a humiliating defeat, the Russian Empire fell into an economic crisis from which they emerged only 14 years after the war and an ideological crisis that created the preconditions for the rise of liberal-socialist and conservative-nationalist political ideologies. The Ottoman Empire went bankrupt and became economically and politically dependent on France and Britain. Britain did not achieve most of its own goals, which caused small internal discontent. The joint rule of the Emirate of Bukhara was limited to a moderate British military presence.

After the war, the territories of Wallachia and Moldova will begin a slow unification campaign and form two nationalist identities, and Ukrainians will gain experienced veteran activists from both sides of the conflict, reinforcing the independence movement. The Turks and the Muslim peoples, who had previously supported the allied forces, were left to fend for themselves. Most Crimean Tatars and Circassians either fled to the Ottoman Empire or were repressed and replaced by Christian Russians, Armenians, and Cossack Old Believers.